MUSIC

 The Guardian - The success of albums by female artists helped arrest a two-decade-long decline in sales of physical music.Women led the way in recorded music this year, according to the British Phonographic Industry, topping the singles chart for 34 out of the 52 weeks and accounting for half of the top 20 albums for the first time. Albums by female artists including Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter, Charli xcx and Billie Eilish were the engine room of growth as combined sales of streaming and physical music rose by nearly 10% to smash past 200m albums or their equivalents as measured by the BPI.